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Stationery by Agha Shahid Ali

Stationery
Agha Shahid Ali

The moon did not become the sun.
It just fell on the desert
in great sheets, reams
of silver handmade by you.
The night is your cottage industry now,
the day is your brisk emporium.
The world is full of paper.

Write to me.

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 The Half-Inch Himalayas

SHARED WITH GRATITUDE

This poem appeared in The Half-Inch Himalayas by Agha Shahid Ali, published by Wesleyan University Press, 1987. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)

ABOUT AGHA SHAHID ALI

A Kashmiri American Muslim, Agha Shahid Ali is best known as a poet in the United States and identified himself as an American poet writing in English. Ali wrote nine poetry collections and a book of literary criticism (T.S. Eliot as Editor, 1986), as well as translated a collection of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry (The Rebel’s Silhouette, 1992) and edited Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English (2000), a collection of ghazals (a Persian poetic form employing repetition, rhyme,… (more)

Read more poems by Agha Shahid Ali • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library

ENDNOTES

Comments (6)

  • Summer

    “The world is full of paper. Write to me.”

    Beautiful.

    reply
  • AXR

    It’s June already.
    I have never written to you before.
    Today I came across this Shahid Ali poem on your site.
    The world stopped for a second,
    or maybe two.
    Filled to the brim, gratitude was about to race with sloth.
    I read it again.
    And then again.
    I wanted to send it out to the world.
    I wanted to receive it in a shoe-box tied with coarse brown string.
    How late could it be?
    How late am I?
    Will you share something else with me?

    reply
    • sc

      you can never be too late

      reply
  • Reblogged this on chronicles from the mad city and commented:
    agha 🙂

    reply
  • […] Stationery by Agha Shahid Ali […]

    reply
  • ah, that’s so lovely. Sharing. Thank you.

    reply

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